Ukraine heads back into the arms of Mother Russia

Though there's little chance President-elect Yanukovich will be a Russian puppet, as some of his detractors claim, he will quickly put the kibosh on some of the quixotic anti-Moscow policies pursued by his predecessor, 2004 Orange Revolution hero Viktor Yushchenko, which included selling arms to Georgia, and recently naming Ukrainian anti-Soviet World War II guerrilla leader Stepan Bandera as a "Hero of Ukraine" -- which provoked a storm of outrage in Russia.

"Geopolitical reality has shifted very markedly in favor of Russia, and Yanukovich's comeback reflects that," says Vadim Karasyov, director of the independent Institute of Global Strategies in Kiev. "There's going to be a very different tone in Kiev, and Russia will be much happier with us."